Photo Friday: Writing Retreat Weekend

On the 11th and 12th, my editor from Evileye Books came down and we locked ourselves in the Mark Twain Hotel to get some work done. It’s a nice place, with a gorgeous library area for a lobby and and some well-appointed rooms.

View from the 9th floor, looking north along Fayette Street

We didn’t have a lot of time to take advantage of the amenities. We spent Saturday refining a few things, going over what’s been done so far on Lie with the Dead, and working through my plans for the next few books in the series. We nailed a solid timeline for releases and draft deadlines, and then I spent a few hours writing. At the end of the night (probably about 3am, actually), I snapped the pic above from my room on the 9th floor.

It’s just a quick snapshot, nothing fancy. Kit lens, high ISO, let the camera figure out the rest. I don’t spend a lot of time in downtown Peoria; most of what the family and I do is on the other side of town. It’s nice down there, though, and a lot quieter than I expected, even for Peoria. You can see I-74 on the right, running parallel to Fayette at this point. If you’ve read “Tweet Tweet, Little Twat” on Shotgun Honey, you’ll know Ron drove down this stretch of highway on his way to grab Trey.

Sunday during the retreat weekend was all about writing. I pounded at the keys while my editor went through and did his thing on the chapters I’d already finished. The whole idea was to be away from the usual distractions, and I think it worked well. I’ve already put a lot of the other nonsense keeping me from the keyboard behind me, so this weekend really helped to get reacquainted with the work and get the book back on track.

Even better, book three is going in a whole new direction I think fans of Winter Kill are really going to love. To those of you eagerly awaiting Lie with the Dead, thanks for bearing with me. Your patience will pay off soon!

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.